UHD Blu-ray Disc Authentication Poll

[KRW1]

Originally Posted by raygendreau

Regarding the genesis and validation of online authentication as a deterrent to piracy prior to physical media street date: A similar process is used when delivering theatrical release hard drives to theaters with keys supplied to unlock the contents a few days before the showing:

http://digitalcinema.bydeluxe.com/info/help-keys/

http://digitalcinema.bydeluxe.com/

The studios probably concluded that the use of controlled keys was effective in reducing piracy for the theatrical release hard drives and decided to apply it to consumer physical media (UHD BR) as well.

In 2013 Spencer Stevens, SONY Picture’s CTO proposed mandatory online authentication for players:

“Studios have not predetermined a standard for 4k content protection, so Stephens proposed a number of measures that could safe-guard the 4K content. Bill Rosenblatt, who spoke at the summit for his company GiantSteps Media, notes that Stephens talked about "title-by-title diversity," so that a technique used to hack one movie title doesn't necessarily apply to another. He added that security on any device is a combination of technical measures and compliance, proposing proposed 4K players to authenticate themselves online before playback, which would enable hacked players to be denied but would also make it impossible to play 4K content without an Internet connection.”

read:http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News...x?NewsId=37253

This eventually led to the current BDA specification that makes it mandatory for all UHD players to enable the optional online Correction Key delivery should a studio choose to use it to prevent access to content prior to street date.

So, in addition to Fox, Sony is another studio that may use online authentication for some future release.

So if this is in any way true, once the release date is passed, there's no need for online authentification so, for all intents and purposes, it won't be a consumer issue at all.

So if a film comes out on, say 20 May, from 20 May onwards, the online key disappears and no-one even realises it was a thing unless they had the disc on 19 May.

Got it. So why is anyone bothered about it? If you buy a locked disc, simply wait for the street date to pass, and, hey presto, unlocked disc.

That said, I don't think it's for piracy at all, I think it's to control the regional release of physical product and licence protection. If it's used at all, and, as we get further into it, I don't think it will be.